Week 3

LOCALLY & INTERNATIONALLY

Revolution In The Land of An Ancient Civilization

It was January 25th 2011, when it all started. Egyptians against Hosni Mubarak marched and demonstrate the unfairness of his reign in Cairo where there was an estimate of 300 deaths. Mubarak announced to the people that he would not stand for election in September 2011.

Hosni Mubarak was elected as president in 1981 and had caused a lot of political corruption in the country. Anti-Mubarak protestors focused on brutality of the police, unemployment among the people and lack of free speech and elections.

In yesterday’s news, however, the Muslim Brotherhood holds first talks with Vice President Omar Suleiman in order to press demands. The government, however, wants the protest to stop and the people to go back to their daily lives since shops in Egypt had been closed for twelve days prior to the riots and protest.

Egyptian protestors against Mubarak claimed they will wait for Mubarak to step down.

Malaysian students studying in Egypt, however, have been reported that they are safe from the riots and were told not to get involved in any protest. The Malaysian government, however, had been organizing an evacuation plan for Malaysians in Egypt to come home. About 11,000 Malaysians were evacuated from Egypt by air.

Today, the first batch of 778 Malaysians in Egyptian landed in KLIA from Jeddah at 10 this morning via MAS Airlines and Air Asia and was greeted by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister at the Kompleks Bunga Raya.

The Malaysian government are also arranging with the Egyptian universities for students to sit for their exams in Malaysia.

Personally, I think that Mubarak should just step down because the more he continue to reign the country, there will be more bloodshed. He had caused enough misery to the country and what I am also concerned of is that Egypt is a country rich with ancient history. I saw a video of the damaged artifacts in the Cairo Museum by National Geographic which broke my heart. Although, famous Egyptologist Zahi Hawass is positive that the artifacts are not severely damaged, but it affect me because those artifacts are from the times before Christ.

As for what is locally related where this whole incident is concerned, before “Operation Pyramid”, I read blogs by students in Egypt claiming all evacuation is under their own effort. Yes, I was not too happy about it. When organising an international evacuation, the government will have to go through with a lot of procedures. The government will have to go through a lot of protocol before they can continue with an evacuation plan and I hope these people are thankful.